Hey tweets, Irene Potter's request for Hawaiian birding tips has jogged
loose a wonderful memory in my brain - on the North Shore of Oahu at Turtle
Bay sits a hotel near the golf course. When we were there, that hotel was
called the Turtle Bay Hilton (might be a different name now). On its
grounds there is a lava promontory that sticks way out into the ocean. At
the very tip of that promontory is a bench. If you sit on that bench in the
early morning and evening, you can watch a river of seabirds fly back and
forth to their feeding and roosting grounds: brown boobies, red-footed
boobies (fun to try to tell them all apart in their various plumages);
wedge-tailed shearwaters bouncing on the wave faces; and frabjuous day, a
Laysan albatross, which came soaring over the promontory itself, using the
hotel to airlift itself higher into the sky.

In those days, my older son Alex was a fine birder, and at age seven, his
eyes and ears were much sharper than mine. So I knew he would want to see
the albatross. I went running into the hotel to find him, and he grabbed
his camera and came running out. The albatross was circling around the
hotel and the grassy knoll near the bench. But Alex couldn't see him
because the perverse bird kept floating right behind his head. Every time
Alex turned a round the bird swooped around too, until Alex was dancing up
and down in frustration. We kept shouting and pointing above his head to
the albatross. Finally the bird relented and showed himself to our
delighted little boy, who took several snaps with his disposable camera,
all showing the bird as a teeny white dot against the white clouds of the
sky.

That bench gives you the absolute A-number-one pelagic experience: you're
out on the ocean but not on a pitching boat wondering how long it will be
before your next trip to the side. It was great. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at mail.isomedia.com